Black Guillemot chicks
Dec. 28, 2010 — We want to wish our friends a happy holiday season and thank you for your support and interest over the past year. 2011 promises to be a busy and exciting time for us as we hope to replace most of the wooden nest sites on Cooper Island with hard plastic cases to reduce polar bear predation on nestlings. In addition to the new nest sites, the New Year will see us starting an educational outreach with some excellent science teachers who want their students (and others) to better understand the reality of climate change. Lesson plans utilizing the Cooper Island data sets will be presented at meetings of the National Science Teachers Association in late 2011.
The educational potential of the Cooper island story is evidenced in some very exciting news we recently received. The UK Royal National Theatre will be including a storyline inspired by the Cooper Island study in a play, Greenland, addressing the issue of climate change and scheduled for a February-April run in London. This is, of course, very flattering and humbling. The Independent has written an account of our work inspired one of the playwrights. The last ten years of fieldwork, documenting the rapid disappearance of summer ice and the invasion of the island by polar bears, would not have been possible without your donations and support and you should all feel as proud as we do that our efforts have resulted in this honor.
Please consider a tax-deductible end-of-year donation to help us with our work to continue to monitor a changing Arctic and educate the public of our findings. Donations can be made online at the Cooper Island Web site or by mailing a contribution to: Friends of Cooper Island, 652 32nd Ave East, Seattle, WA 98112.
Updates on our 2011 activities will be available throughout the year on the Cooper Island Web site, our blog right here on Adventures in Climate Change, and occasionally by emails to our mailing list. An event is being planned for April in Seattle and we hope to see many of you then.
Thanks again and enjoy the holidays and New Year.
George Divoky and the Friends of Cooper Island Board